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Are we to rest all on pursuit and on the soul? Is it enough
to put faith in the soul's choice and call that good which the
soul pursues, never asking ourselves the motive of its choice? We
marshal demonstration as to the nature of everything else; is the
good to be dismissed as choice?
Several absurdities would be entailed. The good becomes a mere
attribute of things; objects of pursuit are many and different so
that mere choice gives no assurance that the thing chosen is the
best; in fact, we cannot know the best until we know the good.
Are we to determine the good by the respective values of things?
This is to make Idea and Reason-Principle the test: all very
well; but arrived at these, what explanation have we to give as
to why Idea and Reason-Principle themselves are good? In the
lower, we recognise goodness- in its less perfect form- by
comparison with what is poorer still; we are without a standard
There where no evil exists, the Bests holding the field alone.
Reason demands to know what constitutes goodness; those
principles are good in their own nature and we are left in
perplexity because cause and fact are identical: and even though
we should state a cause, the doubt still remains until our reason
claims its rights There. But we need not abandon the search;
another path may lead to the light.
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